One USDA scientist went so far as to claim that there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from eating fermented vegetables.

I try to write in the first person - the first person not of a journalist but of a carnivore, an eater, a gardener, someone trying to figure out what to feed his family.

Much more has to be done to democratize the food movement. One of the reasons that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food is that the government supports unhealthy food and does very little to support healthy food, whether you mean organic or grass-fed or whatever.

We're always projecting our moral categories on things. I think that's inevitable. But capitalism places no particular value on morality. Morality in the market is enforced by contract and regulation and law, because morality is understood to be in conflict with the motive force of greed and accumulation.

Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.

The interesting thing I learned was that if you're really concerned about your health, the best decisions for your health turn out to be the best decisions for the farmers and the best decisions for the environment-and that there is no contradiction there.

Corn is a greedy crop, as farmers will tell you.